I would give that a shot jlin. We had somebody here before who was very knowledgeable do some testing on that, and it did increase a bit. Nothing to lose!

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Scottiemon

Hey all. I've been playing with my setup now for a little over a week (two 5T's, two 4B's, 5C and 8D) and have run into a weird problem with my onkyo tx-sr805. For some reason if I want to listen to an audio CD that I put into my DVD player or PS3, both of which are connected to the receiver by an HDMI cables. the TV must be on for the receiver to sense the HDMI input signal. If I use my XM player which is connected to the receiver by an analog cable the TV doesn't have to be on. One of the aperion gurus said this shouldn't happen so I was wondering if anybody else has run across it, and if so, how to fix it. Right now the DVD player is connected to the receiver by HDMI and the receiver is connected to the TV by an HDMI but if the TV is off the receiver is unable to accept signal from any of its HDMI inputs. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Also what have you guys been using under your equalizer settings? I did the Audussey setup but it sucked so I manually calibrated speaker volume levels but I then turned my equalizer from Audussey to Manual (so now everything is at 0dB). Just want to get an idea of what other people use since my system seems to have a bit more bass then I'd like. My crossovers are 5T (60), 5C (60), 8D (80), 4B (80) and the 8D is -6 or -7dB's lower than the rest of my levels. Anyway, the speaker sound great even with the small issues, I never really enjoyed listening to music but now I prefer to just sit on the sofa and be surrounded by music. It's really amazing what crap I was using before to listen to sound! 

Jason:

Hey all. I've been playing with my setup now for a little over a week (two 5T's, two 4B's, 5C and 8D) and have run into a weird problem with my onkyo tx-sr805. For some reason if I want to listen to an audio CD that I put into my DVD player or PS3, both of which are connected to the receiver by an HDMI cables. the TV must be on for the receiver to sense the HDMI input signal. If I use my XM player which is connected to the receiver by an analog cable the TV doesn't have to be on. One of the aperion gurus said this shouldn't happen so I was wondering if anybody else has run across it, and if so, how to fix it. Right now the DVD player is connected to the receiver by HDMI and the receiver is connected to the TV by an HDMI but if the TV is off the receiver is unable to accept signal from any of its HDMI inputs. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Also what have you guys been using under your equalizer settings? I did the Audussey setup but it sucked so I manually calibrated speaker volume levels but I then turned my equalizer from Audussey to Manual (so now everything is at 0dB). Just want to get an idea of what other people use since my system seems to have a bit more bass then I'd like. My crossovers are 5T (60), 5C (60), 8D (80), 4B (80) and the 8D is -6 or -7dB's lower than the rest of my levels. Anyway, the speaker sound great even with the small issues, I never really enjoyed listening to music but now I prefer to just sit on the sofa and be surrounded by music. It's really amazing what crap I was using before to listen to sound! 

Try setting your 8D to cross over at 60 as well.  I run my 5B and 8D at 60.  I started them at 80 but it just did not sound righ to me.  I have my 8D set to -6 as well.  One more thing, unless you are use to listening to music with a sub, or fronts that handle low bass, it might just seem like to much bass.  That is what I thought with my setup, setting the sub crossover to 60 (on the AVR, Bypass on the sub) cleaned things up noticably, but over time I began to believe that the bass is not too much, it is just that I never listened to music before on my home system that had the ability to reproduce the lower bass content.  Now I can hear the bass guitar being picked, and it sounds more like I remember live music sounding.  Looking at it another way, when I hear the bass line it does not hide or smother the mids or highs.  There is a difference between bass and distortion and the way my system is not setup the bass is very musical indeed.

One additional suggestion is moving your sub around some, you might be getting standing waves.  I do suggest you leave the sub within the bounds of the 5Ts or a most not far out side of them.  When I first got my system I set them up temporarily just to get to hear them.  Had the sub several feet outside the front, did not like the sound as I walked around.  This suggestion applies mostly to music I believe.  Oh one more thing, make sure you set the speaker distances pretty accutately,  Have the bass notes arriving to soon seemed to make the bass really stand out.

Cheers

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Russ

Joined you!

Hey Russ,

 Great advice. I'll try it tonight. I thought I tried to set the sub crossover to 60 last night but the receiver didn't let me. It may have been me dreaming that I tried, but I thought the lowest I could go was 80. I'll double check, it may have been that I was toying with all my other speakers and they all had 80 as their minimum so the sub had to be 80. I since changed them back to the crossovers I wrote earlier but may not have tried to change the sub to a lower level. Right now it's within the bounds of the 5T's but I'll see if I move it a bit if it'll do anything. Any ideas regarding the HDMI issue? I hate to keep the TV on unnecessarily since its a distraction from the music and seeing the DVD home screen is irritating. 

Jason:

Hey Russ,

 Great advice. I'll try it tonight. I thought I tried to set the sub crossover to 60 last night but the receiver didn't let me. It may have been me dreaming that I tried, but I thought the lowest I could go was 80. I'll double check, it may have been that I was toying with all my other speakers and they all had 80 as their minimum so the sub had to be 80. I since changed them back to the crossovers I wrote earlier but may not have tried to change the sub to a lower level. Right now it's within the bounds of the 5T's but I'll see if I move it a bit if it'll do anything. Any ideas regarding the HDMI issue? I hate to keep the TV on unnecessarily since its a distraction from the music and seeing the DVD home screen is irritating. 

I don't have a HDTV yet so I do not have any personal experience but I know some use the HDMI cable to carry the video and audio to the TV and then run optical from the TV to the AVR for sound.  In a situation like that the TV would have to be on.  Other than that I can only guess that some setting on the AVR that says video only on HDMI might be required.  HDMI may not do 2 channel sound.  You might need to run analog 2 ch to the CD input on the 805.  I really don't know but the folks at Aperion have an 805 in the demo room so I bet they can help you, after all they now are Onkyo dealers!  They don't always see all the messages so do a chat session or give them a call, they will be happy to work with you.

Cheers

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Russ

Joined you!

There is a setting in the setup called (from the best of my recollection) HDMI audio. Try turning this to off. The downside is that HDMI audio will not pass to the TV, and you have to have your 805 on for audio. But then you probably will get audio without your TV on.

I have mine set that way, as I have my cable going directly to my TV with component, and RCA audio (WAF, she does not want to have to mess with the amp). I have the optical out going to the 805. Since I use the amp for all other sources, I do not need audio from the TV set.

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Scottiemon

I have a PS3 that acts as my DVD/CD/MP3 player and is connected to my 805 via HDMI.  My cable goes directly into my TV and I use the optical out to get the sound from the TV through the receiver. 

The menu Scottiemon is talking about is under Hardware Setup/HDMI and is called HDMI Audio Out.  I have mine set to Off.  I can insert a CD into the PS3 and it'll play without the TV on.

One thing I've noticed is that when the PS3 and TV are on and I'm playing MP3 and I turn off the TV the sound momentarily turns off but then comes back on.  A little annoying but not a big deal.

I don't think this has anything to do with you crossover or any other speaker configuration.  Simply just the way the receiver is set up and your connections.

Bryan

Hey Guys,

 Sorry I didn't get to this post a little earlier. Looks like I could have saved some folks some time. At any rate, it looks like you guys found the setting you needed to.

When we first got our 875 set up, I was extremely frustrated because I wasn't getting DTS Master audio. The Blu-Ray demo disc I was using was made specifically for DTS Master HD audio demos so I knew there was a receiver setting not yet properly adjusted. By turning the HDMI audio out OFF, the Onkyo no longer passes the HDMI straight through, but now taps the audio stream and does what it is supposed to do: Decode!

Interestingly enough, the hiccup in sound is likely caused by the communication between your devices through the HDMI cable. This feature, which is marketed by different manufacturers as some sort of proprietary technology, is inherrant to HDMI. If your receiver is on and set to FM radio, for example, then you turn on an HDMI device that is connected to your receiver, your receiver should automatically switch to that device.

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Caleb Denison
Home Theater Guru
Aperionaudio.com

Hey all. I ran home for lunch to play with it some more. In any case I already had the HDMI audio out off. With it off, the TV plays no sound (duh). Now with the TV on I can listen to a music CD in my DVD or PS3 just fine. I then turned the TV off and the sound cut out again. The little menu on the front of the 805 then said "no signal detected" or something to that effect. When I switched from my HDMI input (DVD) to my analog input (VCR) from the same DVD player (two outputs from the DVD player) the analog works fine. So even with audio output off (which its always been) it still wont play the silly thing with the TV off. As of now everything runs through the receiver and the receiver is only connected with the TV via 1 HDMI. The sound seems to be the same between the analog and the HDMI cables so I can just use the analog cable when listening to a CD, but it still kind of sucks. Oh well.

Look at your setting for TV Control in the setup menu. I bet that is it. Refer to pages 37 and 99 in your manual.

If that does not work, I would get in touch with Onkyo support on this. This is not normal, and you should not live with it.

I for one, would not live with this. Being an 805 owner myself, this is not acceptable, and not the way it is supposed to work. Unnecessary wear and tear on your TV. Plus, as Caleb has mentioned, it may not be providing you the best audio available.

Let us know how it goes.

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Scottiemon

Hey Scottiemon. I just read back through the manual and came across the following information from page 37: 

"When listening to audio from an HDMI component through the AV receiver’s speakers, set the HDMI  component so that its video can be seen on your TV (e.g., on your TV, select the input to which the HDMI component is connected). If your TV is not turned on or a different input is selected, the AV receiver's speakers may produce no sound or the sound may be cut off."

 Sounds as if they know of this issue when they designed the system. Strange that you guys don't have the same issue. It refers to the "TV control" but I'm not sure of what that is and I did a search in adobe of pdf version of the manual and couldn't really figure out what TV control really refers to. As of now, however, the audio out is OFF. I'll play around on the TV settings and see if I can figure it out, but the manual says it may not work. I understand exactly what Caleb talked about as I played with those settings myself if you keep HDMI audio out on, it sounds like crap. Maybe I have to trick the receiver that the TV is on. . . 

Dude,

As I stated, read 37 (which you already did) and 99. It actually continues onto 100. This is not an "issue" per say. It sounds to me as though the amp is working just fine. You just need to look at the TV Control setting in setup. You don't have to trick the amp into anything.

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Scottiemon

Ok so i've been playing with it some more. If the TV is on it works. While the music is playing I can change the input on the TV and it continues to work but if I turn the TV off even on a nonexistant input it stops playing the music. I can regain the music if i then turn off the HDMI monitor output on the receiver. Neither the TV or receiver are trying to control the other in terms of power on/off. I read all those pages and the TV control is off on the receiver as is the power control and HDMI audio out is turned off. When I tried it with the TV control on it didn't help the situation as it still didn't work. I sent in an e-mailed question to onkyo support asking for more help but really have no idea what else to try. My TV is a 6 month old Sony Bravia XBR4 so it has the ability to turn off connections via HDMI but its currently set to off and I've never used it to do so. Any more ideas before onkyo support hopefully gets back to me? Do you have your TV control setup thing on? the default is off and I've kept it on the default = off. I can't find anybody with the problem on avsforum either so I think I'm just an idiot. Can anybody give any more ideas? or possibly let me know what their settings are that seem to work with using a DVD player or PS3 as a CD player with their TV off? Thanks so much!

UPDATE: I called onkyo customer support. They were extremely....unhelpful. They said that the receiver DOES NOT output audio to the speakers if a device is connected by HDMI (DVD player, for example) and the TV is OFF so long as the receiver has HDMI monitor on. He said that the only way to play a CD or movie in the DVD player through the speakers without seeing the picture is to manually turn off monitor out. When I said that others had said they can play audio via HDMI with their TV off he said that it simply isn't true. I don't believe him as he was really slow and stupid. He kept putting me on hold. Absolutely not even close to Aperion's guru's with respect to caring about me. :( I'll try to Guru's tomorrow or Friday unless they answer the chat here. 

The more I think about this....the more it makes me wonder.

I have never tried to listen to a cd through my PS3 or HDDVD player. Given HDCP protocol (if protocol is the right word), it just might be the case. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP if you are not familiar with HDCP. The only thing I have listened to with the TV off is my cable, which is hooked up via optical, and of course, FM tuner.

It is indeed possible that the TV needs to be on so that the amp "sees" a HDCP compliant device at the end of the chain (called a handshake).

I am out of town until Friday. If you don't get an answer until then, I will report back with my findings. I am sorry that I might have misled you. I was so sure it was tied to HDMI audio and TV control.

Bryan mentioned he has HDMI to the TV. But he also mentioned that he loops it back over optical, which does not have HDCP. I am guessing that his TV passes on the audio only signal back to the amp, without the HDCP. Just guessing.

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Scottiemon